New Year, New Brand – Why We Metamorphosed

Happy New Year - A Little Note from FFB’s Marketing Manager

I know it’s slightly overdue, but better late than never hey?! FFB had a pretty busy 2016, and we’re all looking forward to seeing what 2017 brings, especially as we completed phase one of our rebranding exercise just before Christmas - hence the quiet period on our blog and social media.

Rebranding our telephone answering service

FFB has been in the call answering business for nearly four years now, and we felt that the timing was right to let you know a little bit about ‘our story’. We’ve just undertaken a rebranding exercise, and as with any brand we wanted to portray an image that we felt matched our service – clear, open, honest, professional, yet friendly. We hope we’ve managed to get this across. Furthermore, after much internal brainstorming we came up with a motif, in the form of a butterfly. We thought about what our service offered our clients, and the main theme being transformation. Whether our clients’ businesses are small or large and regardless of what sector they are in, missing a call can bring with it a myriad of mixed emotions. A missed call can mean losing a potential new customer or can damage your business’ reputation, which can make you feel stressed and worried. Our service helps our clients in all these respects as well as helping them to grow. The butterfly signifies transformation and metamorphosis - we have helped many many business grow and increase their revenues and profits. Just one missed call can equate to thousands of pounds in lost revenue, therefore we felt the butterfly was a good indication of what our telephone answering service represents. This was the first phase of our rebranding exercise and we have a schedule of further improvements to be made. Watch this space…

FFB’s Backstory – Why?

With an established record of serving SMEs in the telecoms and service managed office sector over many years, Andy MacGregor, our MD, and his wife Marie, recognised the need for a local telephone answering service. Andy and Marie both manage serviced offices in the village of Burscough, Lancashire, and the idea was born out of the fact that their business is all about providing first-class exceptional service. All tenants really appreciated a great receptionist, and as most of these tenants were smaller businesses that couldn’t really justify or afford a full-time receptionist, the entrepreneurial couple decided to branch out into call answering. This is why they wanted to establish a phone answering service – to help small businesses grow and complement larger business' working practices. Extensive research began in 2011 and the results were conclusive ─ people in business wanted a great PA not just a good PA, and a person who got to know their business inside and out by interacting with their callers as if they were a full-time member of staff. Research also proved that people who used a call answering service wanted one that was customer centric.

Telephone Answering Services in 2017

Fast forward to 2017 and we’re delighted that we are a customer focused UK based telephone answering service, offering a free 7-day trial, the ability to listen back to all calls via a client portal, as well as a feedback function (letting us know how we’re meeting your expectations). We also are able to screen unwanted sales calls and won’t charge you a single penny for them. We are constantly evolving and updating and enhancing our bespoke call answering system on a continuous basis. We listen to what our customers tell us they want, and also welcome feedback from our PAs – after all they are the ones taking the calls and helping customers and callers alike. We’ve always prided ourselves on our conscientious PAs, as they are our frontline staff and they really do make all the difference!

Getting it ‘right first time'

As Marketing Manager for FFB, I’m passionate about creating the right brand and letting people know why we’re different to the other telephone answering services in the UK. I feel that we possess all the right qualities to look after other business' telephone calls, excellently. I cannot stress how much FFB endeavours to provide a first-class call answering service. We may not have been in the business as long as our competitors, but we’re concentrating on getting it ‘right first time’ and I’m pleased to say that we have a pretty successful retention rate. We’re still learning as we go, and as I’m constantly reminded ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’, but I’m confident about FFB’s growth this year and I’m passionate about getting the message out to the masses that FFB will become the UK’s ‘favourite’ call answering service…